SAO PAULO: Three-time FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldo, whose goalscoring genius led Brazil to the 2002 World Cup title, confirmed his retirement on Monday at the age of 34.

The tearful Corinthians striker announced his decision at a press conference in Sao Paulo.

“I’m stopping my career as a professional footballer,” he said, his voice breaking. “It’s been a beautiful, emotional, marvellous career.

“These last two years, I’ve had a long series of injuries, from one side to the other, one leg to the other, one muscle to the other. The pain pushed me to think about the end of my career.”

MUMBAI: The Indian cricket board has taken a personal accident policy worth $500,000 per player who is a part of the national team that will play in the World Cup.

The BCCI has also taken another insurance policy to the tune of Rs 130 crore, which will shield it from financial losses in the event of a match being affected by bad weather.

Reena Bhatnagar, deputy general manager, Oriental Insurance Company, said, “The BCCI has bought the group personal accident policy from OIC. Each player can expect a financial benefit of up to Rs 2.3 crore under this policy.”

Sachin Tendulkar has achieved just about every individual accolade in cricket and holds an almost divine status in India, where the TV audience soars every time he goes out to bat.

However, his 21-year international career is missing one notable achievement: a World Cup title. That adds to the pressure on India, which is co-hosting the tournament with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and will stage the April 2 final at Mumbai, Tendulkar’s home town.

Congratulations are in order. February 19 has been chosen as the day when Lara Dutta will marry Mahesh Bhupathi, who recently divorced Shweta Jaishankar. The wedding will be held at a five-star hotel in Goa.

Says a source, “Lara and Mahesh love Goa. They both decided to convert their favourite holiday spot into a place that would be memorable to them forever.”

After marriage, Lara will shift to Bhupathi’s flat in Nibbana Society at Pali Hill. Mumbai Mirror dated April 22, 2010, had broken the story about Lara taking active interest in decorating that house.”

LOS ANGELES: Tiger Woods has once again ended a calendar year as golf’s top earner, despite suffering a pay cut of $48 million after losing his swing and his marriage and failing to win a single tournament.

The American world number two, who celebrated his 35th birthday on Thursday, topped Golf Digest magazine’s annual list for 2010 with overall earnings of $74.2 million.

Of that, only $2.29 million came from tournament purses with the rest accumulated off-course through endorsements and appearance fees.

Fellow American Phil Mickelson was second with total earnings of $40.18 million, followed by Arnold Palmer ($36 million), Greg Norman fourth ($30 million) and Jack Nicklaus fifth ($25.17 million).

MUMBAI: Kings XI Punjab has won again. In its second legal victory against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) within a week, an appeal bench of the Bombay high court paved the way for the Mohali IPL franchisee owned by actor Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, Mohit Burman and Karan Paul to participate in the forthcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) seasons.

The setback to the BCCI came when a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Anoop Mohta rejected the board’s appeal against the stay granted by a single judge on the termination of the Kings XI franchise agreement.

LONDON: Rafael Nadal and Caroline Wozniacki have been named ITF World Champions for 2010.

Nadal, who won the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, won the award given by the International Tennis Federation for the second time.

Wozniacki, a Dane who won six tour titles this year to take the No. 1 ranking but failed to reach a Grand Slam final, won for the first time.

Nadal, who completed a career Grand Slam by winning in New York, says “after a difficult year in 2009, it was an amazing feeling to regain the No. 1 ranking and finally win the US Open.”

MUMBAI: Kings XI Punjab’s owners, who have moved the Bombay high court in a desperate bid to get their termination order from the Indian Premier League (IPL) rescinded, could now face more heat, this time from within.

The franchise, owned by Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia and Mohit Burman among others, has not yet cleared the dues of its players – including big names like Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan.

Sources said that Yuvraj was initially paid Rs 1 crore in August but he is still waiting for the rest of his salary, which is more than Rs 3 crore. BCCI had paid Kings Rs 14 crore as advance in May this year.

India’s stand-in captain Gautam Gambhir cracked an unbeaten 138 off 116 balls to lift the hosts to an eight-wicket win over New Zealand in the second one-day international on Wednesday.

The left-hander’s eighth one-day century enabled India to surpass New Zealand’s challenging 258-8 with seven overs to spare in the day-night match at the Sawai Man Singh stadium in Jaipur.

The emphatic victory gave India a 2-0 lead in the five-match series after the hosts had won the first game in Guwahati on Sunday by 40 runs.

NEW DELHI: Indian men’s kabaddi team continued their golden run by winning record sixth Asiad kabaddi gold after beating Iran 37-20 in the finals.

With the addition of this gold medal, India have so far won 12 golds, 15 silvers and 32 bronze medals at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China on Friday.

The indomitable Indian kabaddi team dished out a brilliant performance right from the start as they outwitted their opponents to take a convincing lead of 24-3 at the lemon-break.

However the Iranians bounced back strongly in the latter half and fetched some crucial points to reduce the margin.

Los Angeles: Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo`s girlfriend Irina Shayk is upset with Spanish GQ after nude photos of her were published in the magazine.
 
The 24-year-old Russian beauty“s agents threatened to sue the mag over the pictures, which they claim have been digitally altered.

However, the magazine insists the underwear model happily stripped off — and has threatened legal action against Shayk`s agents Elite.

The stunning brunette posed for GQ in Madrid on November 4 and the magazine published 14 sexy photographs and an interview this week.

NAGPUR: Spinners Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha wreaked havoc on a turning track as India recorded one of their most convincing Test wins in recent times by thrashing New Zealand by an innings and 198 runs in third and final Test to clinch the three-match series 1-0 on Tuesday.

The spin duo never looked threatening during the entire series but proved to be an altogether different proposition with turn and bounce that was on offer.

Both Harbhajan (3/56) and Ojha (2/67) got appreciable turn and bounce as the Black Caps batsmen literally struggled to stay put on a track that was suddenly looking difficult to bat on. There was sharp turn on offer and some of the balls were also keeping low.

NEW DELHI: India’s tennis pair Somdev Devvarman and Sanam Singh won the sixth gold for the country in the men’s doubles event of the Asian Games, when they beat Gong M and Li Z of China on Monday.

The Indian pair won 6-3, 6-7, 10-8 in super tie-breaker.

The gold came after Sania Mirza and Vishnu Vardhan settled for silver medal after losing the mixed doubles final 6-4, 1-6, 2-10 to Chan Yung Jan and Yang Tsung Hua.

Earlier in the day Somdev advanced to the final’s of the single’s event.(TNN)

GUANGZHOU: India opened its athletics campaign in the Asian Games in a spectacular fashion with long distance runners Preeja Sreedharan and Sudha Singh clinching the gold medals in the women’s 10,000m and 3000m steeplechase at the Aoti main stadium on Sunday.

To add to the delight, Kavita Raut secured the silver medal behind Preeja in the in the 10,000m race at the Aoti Main Stadium.

28-year-old Preeja, belonging to Kerala’s Idukki district, and Commonwealth Games bronze winner Kavita of Maharashtra ran a tactical race by staying back of the pack before making the final effort to put back the bunch of nine other runners and cross the finish line with personal best times.

MUMBAI: The fourth edition of the Indian Premier League will begin from April 8 next year, six days after the conclusion of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, with the high profile players’ auction to be held on January 8 and 9.

Like the first three editions, there will be eight teams participating in the Twenty20 event, with 60 matches to be played with the title clash to be held on May 22.

NEW DELHI: Continuing his good form with the bat, Harbhajan Singh hit his second century on the fourth day of the second Test against New Zealand at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Monday.

Harbhajan reached the landmark off 105 balls and his knock was studded with 7 fours 6 sixes.

This is Harbhajan’s second successive century and the knock made him the only batsman in Test history to hit two consecutive hundreds at the number eight position.

With one more Test to go, Harbhajan is now the highest run-getter in the present series.

GUANGZHOU: Ace shooter Gagan Narang picked up his and India’s second medal at the Asian Games by netting the silver in the 10m air rifle individual event but Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra disappointed by failing to even qualify for the finals on Saturday.

Narang could not better the world record of 703.5 that he holds and shot a score of 700.7 (597+103.7) to settle for silver behind China’s Qinan Zhu (598+104).

Korean Kiwon Kim (596+104) took the bronze medal. Narang, who won three bronze medals in Doha Games four years ago, was the lone Indian to qualify for the event after Bindra and Sanjeev Rajput failed to make the cut in the qualifying shoot-off.

MUMBAI: Kings XI Punjab, owned by a consortium led by actor Priety Zinta and industrialist Ness Wadia, has filed an arbitration petition in Bombay High Court challenging Cricket Board’s decision to terminate their IPL franchise contract.

The move of Kings XI comes close on the heels of Shilpa Shetty’s Rajasthan Royals challenging a similar decision of the BCCI in the High Court.

BCCI had recently terminated the franchisees of Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals on the ground that they had changed the shareholding pattern without informing the Board or IPL Governing Council.

DUBAI: The International Cricket Council on Thursday announced the appointment of Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar as the official event ambassador for the 2011 Cricket World Cup.

With exactly 100 days to go, Tendulkar in his role as ambassador will be called upon to promote and support a variety of ICC initiatives for the World Cup, which will take place in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka from February 19 to April 2 next year.

“There are just 100 days to go and I am really looking forward to playing in another Cricket World Cup,” said Tendulkar, who will join Pakistan’s Javed Miandad as the only other player to take part in six World Cups.

Lara dutta and Mahesh Bhupathi have decided to get married in Goa, if buzz is to be believed.

We hear that the couple are planning to wed in a church there and the ceremony is planned for February. However, Lara’s spokesperson said that nothing had been finalised yet. Well, we’ll just wait for February then!